


Morning Mist

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon - Enhances original, Canon - Non-canonical to good purpose, Characters - Friendship, Characters - Outstanding OC(s), Characters - Unusual relationship(s), Characters - Well-handled emotions, Other - Freeform, Plot - Bittersweet, Plot - Can't stop reading, Plot - Surprising reversals, Subjects - Culture(s), Subjects - Legends/Myth/History, Writing - Engaging style, Writing - Well-handled introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2004-08-12
Packaged: 2018-03-23 12:22:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3768060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a small village of Scotland in the early twentieth century, Maedhros has been hiding peacefully, when a familiar friend discovers him by chance, both thinking the other long dead.   An Alternative Universe story, with warning for Angst.</p><p>a/n:  it is written 'tootha' because that is how it is pronounced and Maidros does not know how it is spelled only spoken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Morning Mist part One

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

I would love to kiss you.  
 _The price of kissing is your life._

Now my loving is running toward my life shouting.  
 _What a bargain, let's buy it._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He found me in a bar if you must think of it like that. A place where people congregate. I had hidden. Safe to say, I wasn't able to go and completely hide, because as he always says, I have the sexiest most distinguishable voice ever heard this side of the ocean.

Findekano was never on this side of the ocean.  
  
I had been speaking to the cat, Simon, a large cat the size of a small dog with thick black hair. It liked my lap, and accepted my hand stroking the soft dark hair. You would think, that being Quendi of some repute, we would have found each other in one of the more cliche seedy bars or taverns round about the city. This was not so. Instead, he wandered in his elegant way back into my half-life while I sat in a cozy green velvet overstuffed chair listening to some eccentric old man who always played the violin here. Between six thirty and nine in the evening that is, and slowly reaching the middle of his performance, and the rather clean little inn being once again thoroughly polished by a kind old woman who had taken one look at me and amusingly taken me in like a stray dog.

I don't know what it is about little old ladies that the sight of a seven foot tall too-thin red haired man with one hand shouldn't instill that kind of instinct. It makes you worry you aren't being intimidating enough, after all, what kind of Kinslayer am I if I can't frighten Mrs. Anchet the inn keeper?

I didn't move, when I saw him. But then, I was drifting quietly on the sounds of Brahms and really did not quite _grasp_ that here was Findekáno the 'Valiant' walking back into my life. My nice little ghostly existence. For all that I had one hand, Mrs. Anchet was growing old and having the help and someone to frighten away unpleasant folk was enough for her to willingly provide a spare bed and regular meals.

She said I brought good luck.

I've been a crown prince of an entire race. I rather like being a ghost. Less complicated.

She says I remind her of the Tootha de danann. She tells me stories of their deeds and how their king lost his hand and so could no longer be king.

No my dear. The king lost the faith of his people, sacrificed his crown for loyalty to his mad father, and knew he would never make a good king as long as he couldn’t get it up for the sight of a pair of breasts.

I am not perfect, nor do I want to be. Saying otherwise would be silly, but then I'm certain you would find others saying exactly the same thing should you happen across my dear brother who I hear in myth still sings to the ocean as if she would willingly give him the journey back to Aman. I doubt with all of my heart that he longs for the Silmaril and regrets throwing it aside. He had a wife who he left in Formenos, promising that they would return one day soon. I think she was with child.

We... we Eldar take much longer to realize things such as pride. Not like you, you mortals.

I can't help but smile to realize how badly my mind has wandered. But then I followed my father in madness. Oh we all did one way or another.

He sits down in the chair beside me, a cup of tea already on its way I know because I know Fingon and I know my kind hostess. He just looks at me with his dark grey eyes, and no, his hair is uncut which is good because I always thought he looked quite handsome with long hair, though it is bound at the nape of his neck. I can see a scar. Several pale lines of badly healed flesh, which means they occurred during a time of perhaps great grief or strain. It takes such to prevent one of us 'children of the stars' to near fully heal from almost any wound.

A shame Varda never put losing a limb into that equation.

Allow me my thoughts of bitterness. I have little else, if you must know. Macalaure is hiding in the hills of Inverness, singing his living for the tiny villages who think him a fairy, one of the blessed Sidhe, the beautiful people and still think at least some kindly upon them. I have no brothers left to me besides him, and no others of my kind to call friend. None that love me back, that is.

"You cut your hair."

"I did. I'll grow it out one of these days."

"They understand growing it long, here." His soft almost faded voice speaks against the crackling of a stone fireplace brimming with golden heat. Much better than the fires of Angband.

"I thought a change would be nice. They told me you were dead." Needless to say, I've never been very good at dancing around the point of my thoughts.

"So did I."

"You taught me to appreciate the finer things. Like life." Blithely. My simple explanation for not following my father's finest creation into the volcano. The thing that contained his spirit, the fire seen when Morgoth split my grandfather's skull like a ripe fruit, murdering him and shedding his blood on the steps of our home house. And contained the light of the trees that would mingle together as the bright heart of the world blessing us when gracing our skin as we walked as children of gods on a holy land.

"I lost my shield, some unfortunate soul found it in the battle."

"Ah."

I look out through the old glass window to the outside. It is raining. There is a hat beside the front entrance, of brown leather with a blue band of thread around the bend. It drips water into a small puddle on the dark oak paneled floor just beyond the reach of the rough mat.

He looks at me still, and I look back. I notice how water slowly slides from the fringe of raven black hair; the tail is hanging over his shoulder and slick tendrils are soaking into the grey wool sweater he wears. He looks warm. Beyond the pallor of his face, that is.

"You look ill."

There is a long moment of silence.

"It's been a very long year."

"I went insane when they told me you were dead."

I did. I remember very little besides curling up into a childlike position wrapped around myself and screaming until my voice broke. I woke up a week later, when they explained kindly to me that the restraints were so that I would not tear at myself as I had been, or do something foolish with my belt knife as they said I had tried to.

I say this abruptly, my simple sentence. For some reason, I feel like I need to tell him this. I feel like I have held out my hand and had a butterfly deign to land. That he will fly away at any instant.

He blinks at me, my childhood friend. My comrade in wooden-sword arms, in crawdad fishing. In hunting squirrels and centuries later, ork and Balrog and god. "I suppose I did not need much to tip me over the edge." I say as if apologetically. Really, it's best that I keep it at that.

"Oh." My dear Findekáno turns his head to look away at the front rooms of the cozy little inn. He seems embarrassed. I would swear there is a blush somewhere in his cheeks.

I wonder if I have disappointed him.

"You are taking a room here for the night, then?" I ask politely. As if we are just old friends who meet every Thursday night of the week, like one of these mortals.

"I'm playing in the Golden Swan, tomorrow night. I'm... I play the harp."

I cannot help but smile at that. "You were always better at music than I was."

"That's only because you have no sense of tune."

His eyes twinkle with sad laughter at a joke that has grown dusty and worn with time like a fragile book, lovingly kept in the best place in the library. It is like reading an elf-ling tale for before one goes to sleep. I smile again and Simon purrs in my lap as my left hand kneads the soft skin of his back.

I wonder if he knows how much I treasure knowing that he remembers that.

“I gave it all to Macalaure.”

I can tell he is restraining some kind of amused comment. I can see it in his eyes. I do read him quite well. He does not want to offend me. I never understood why he would worry about that so much.

We have been talking for perhaps ten minutes now, counting the silence, and yet he still shows no sign of shock that I am here. I am not sure why I am just the same. It has after all been somewhat more than an Age since last we thought the other was... quite dead.

“Will you... come watch?”

“Is that an invitation?”

The pale skin and high cheekbones darken again. He was never as good as I at such forwardness. No wonder he never married, just as I heard.  
“It is.”

The old man is still playing. I’m glad, because Simon is a comforting presence of soft dark hair to love with my hand and warmth against my bones. I get too cold too easily, these days, and the cat prefers his laps when there is music.

“Then I accept the invitation.”

“Good.”

He looks glad. And yet nervous at the same time, which is odd.

Our conversation continues like this until the old man has stopped playing and Findekáno is on his fourth cup of tea. He seems very thirsty.

When I walk with him to his room, he pauses and looks at me. Silently I wish he would ask me to enter, to follow him into the night and I would follow him as long as he asked me to. But he does not. I see the minute reactions in his face and his body, then he just speaks.

“Do you think... we still live forever?”

“Valinor is lost to us. I have tasted death from more than a sword.” I still carry Simon, but I let him drop to the floor and run off, a black shadow in the dim hallway that I look down. “I think books that speak of us as legends will live on long after us, now.” And I do. This... time, this Age feels different. It feels as if the release of our hroa at our choosing finally comes to us. I do not know about you, but I would much rather die in my sleep than by sword.

Findekáno gives me a silent nod. “It feels that way to me, too.” Those eyes, almost black in the light, I can see them look back into his room once more.

I want to ravish him. Pull him into his room, lock the door and make him mine, claim him against the bed and make the whole village know by my cries what I have known since before they knew how to build wattle huts when the god of lies was imprisoned so long ago.

Instead I bid him a quiet good night, telling him where my room is should he need me for anything, though only I know I think what sort of need, and I go to my bed though not to sleep. Not tonight with Findekáno in a room nearby, no crown on either head, no army to lead nor oath to fulfill.

He wakes I think when I do, because I hear his door open a little down the hall as I lay there and the softest of footfall as he moves to the front rooms. I can hear him practicing on his harp and I know by the sounds that he is still just as talented as he ever was. After all, he trained under Macalaure.

I follow, still dressed, and go back to sitting in the same green velvet overstuffed chair as last night. And I listen to him play.

And I pretend everything is as it should be.


	2. Morning Mist part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a small village of Scotland in the early twentieth century, Maedhros has been hiding peacefully, when a familiar friend discovers him by chance, both thinking the other long dead. An Alternative Universe story, with warning for Angst.

I am not entirely certain that the next day was any better. It was still drizzling out, a cold grey mist hovering around the inn and the entire village as a whole. The insides of the window panes were cold and wet with moisture from the air and you could draw little sketches against it like a tablet. Which I did, marking not words but simply stick figures and idle designs of Fingolfin's sigil or anything else that I could remember.

It always seemed terribly important to me that I remember as much as I could. Especially when I had suddenly realized I could not remember what my mother looked like. It took another five years to recollect that she had a straight nose like a hawk that defined her nobility in nature I think I never was quite able to inherit. A reddish color to her hair, I hope that is correct. I remember being told my hair took after her kin.

The chair was situated now against the window whilst I listened to Findekáno play his harp, Mrs. Anchett happy to provide free lodgings should he practice in the front rooms. Apparently she enjoyed such music, and though he always felt uncomfortable it seems with his voice, he was equally happy to oblige her interest. And so at this moment he worked on a tune I vaguely remembered hearing, wailed along the beaches after a winter storm had taken the fishing boats.

I had spent many centuries on this continent before tonight or the previous day and had grown to learn much. It is easier to hide, here where they do not ask you for a card to verify your existence. Easier, to be that ghost with red hair.

"That's depressing. Can't you find something more cheerful?"

"You know what it is about?"

"I watched the heart play it on the faces of those who sung it to the sea themselves."

"Oh... what other song would you have me play, then?"

I considered that, then wondered how many songs he did know. "Na Laethe Bhí." It was a random guess. I really didn't know if he would know it. I have learned that if one is thinking of an Irish tune, and it has a title called 'days that were' or any other kind of name like that, there are bound to be more of the songs than you will want to know. But I did like the one that I was thinking of.

I watched Findekano's hands, long, fine and worn. Not pale like someone who should be called Noble and Valiant. Though he was, and I would never doubt that he had remained so. No, his fingers, his palms I was positive, were worn from honest work and toil that he had put forth in his time within these hither lands.

I was certain they were still callused with sword practice, and as well with many hours of practice upon his harp until he had grown quite sick of the thing. Though I have yet to see another Eldar become sick from too much music, except my brother Macalaure. But he is entirely apart from any kind of range that contains the variety of our kind when it comes to music.

I still know distinctively that it takes four minglings of the light of the trees to make him stop and realize that some food and perhaps sleep would be good, and to realize that without rest from the harmony then he will lose that harmony. This was what he told me, anyway. I never thought myself to be very good at understanding art or music, and cannot say even somewhat talented.

Macalaure was kind enough to teach me how to paint. I did a mural in the baths, across the walls of tiles to be what you would see should there be no walls. He helped me, and it kept Ambarussa endlessly entertained to try to find all of the animals we had put in the walls.

Sometimes I think my memories are slowly fading from my mind, reciting themselves slowly and moving like a river until they have found the ocean. I wonder what the ocean is like, that they go to.

He fussed over the strings, and the wood of the harp. The cold of the morning mist seemed to make it more difficult to play, but I could tell no difference. This was a better song, I felt. It was not the depressing thing that it seemed to sound like by the name, but a pretty song of golden sunsets and no war in sight. At least, that's what I thought of when I listened to it, and I could imagine and pretend things were different. That this was my uncle's house and I had come to visit as I often did in Valinor to spend time with Findekáno who had it seemed grown to think highly of me as I had been told, and I was willing enough to put up with his presence. I never was willing to admit just how much of his presence I wanted.

I suspect by the looks that Findekáno keeps giving me that he thinks I am a little crazy.

Just as well, I think I am a little crazy too.

The green velvet of the chair feels comfortable and warm against my arms like the skin of a lover, warm and inviting and I curl into it, waiting for Simon the cat to jump up into my lap as I had espied him hovering below. The large cat walking in a circle around my stomach before settling down into a ball, which I suspect, is instantly asleep.

My head is turned so that I can watch Findekáno play, and I see he has braided his hair back into a tail. Mine is not yet long enough to braid, it is just long enough to hang in a shaggy mane past my ears. Mrs. Anchett says it makes me look seventeen with my clothes hanging too lose on my frame, so much that she seems to have decided it her mission to make me fatten up and so feeds me as often as possible. She is a good cook, and I have learned to never argue against food that is edible and meant for consumption. Though sometimes I wonder at her logic if I am meant to help around the inn and keep unruly people away, if I am looking so very young.

There are trees outside, what few there are in these regions, and I can hear the wind blowing through the leaves in a quiet sigh. In forty-five minutes Mrs. Anchett will be awake and making breakfast for the inn's household and guests, along with the cook though she prefers to make the tea herself. At least that is what the clock on the mantelpiece tells me, because it reads 6:15am.

Simon is abruptly awake and purring softly against my stomach as I stroke his glossy black hair that reminds me of Findekáno’s, my right hand tucked away as I have learned over these many years to unconsciously put it aside so that I cannot see the stump.

I’m afraid I can’t help it when I watch him play as he moves into a song I do not recognize. Those fingers, that should always play an instrument and never touch a sword again moving so joyfully across the strings of his harp.

His eyes are closed, spirit uplifted by the music and carried away to a world that I cannot reach. Wandering some hill or valley with his heart soaring across sun-lit skies, somewhere, far away. You can tell when he is not aware of what is happening around him, that distant look of peace I am instantly jealous of. I wonder what he is thinking about and don’t realize until Simon whines at me that I have forgotten to continue petting him. Findekáno opens his eyes at the noise that is not his music and looks curiously at me, realizing that I have been staring at him.

“You looked very peaceful.” My excuse for wanting to touch his face and kiss those closed eyelids.

“It is a good song.” He says so quietly, and I think I have bothered him by my attention.

“Where is the song from?”

“It’s my own. I wrote it after the Arnoediad.”

“Oh.” Softly.

I don’t realize I am weeping until I hear him speaking my name with worry in his voice. It is the first time I have heard him say it since before I was told he was dead.

“Maitimo?”

“-fine. I’m fine.” I hold Simon to my lap, like a lifeline. Findekáno looks at me. “Really. Just nerves, the weather puts me off.” Darting my eyes towards the window, this time I am afraid to see his gaze and meet it. After a long pause that makes the air crawl with tension I suspect is my own, he speaks softly in his quiet voice tempered from his music playing.

“I’ll play another song.”

I fall asleep, after the lunch tea is served. Findekáno doesn’t stop playing.


	3. Morning Mist part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a small village of Scotland in the early twentieth century, Maedhros has been hiding peacefully, when a familiar friend discovers him by chance, both thinking the other long dead. An Alternative Universe story, with warning for Angst.

The next night, I am nervous. I have not been nervous about something in a very long time. But this night I am. Because Findekáno has invited me to watch him play the harp in the tavern where he is to perform at tonight. He insists he can play the violin and that he is much better at it. But that morning, as he practiced and I listened, he admitted he was forced to sell it at some point in the past, but would not tell me for what.

I am dressed in different clothes today. Some how I have managed to acquire more, I think because Mrs. Anchett does not like the idea of an employee of hers, wearing the same thing every day. My trousers are still too short, but it is no matter that I can help, because of how tall I am. I was named Maidros The Tall for good reason.

I have a pair of boots that cover past my ankles which keep me warm, and that is good because the morning mist has left a fine chill dew against the grass of the hills. What little there is, cropped by the sheep that roam them.

The leather is comfortable, padded soles against the scars at the soles of my feet that are thicker than calluses. I don't remember what excuse I gave for them, when Mrs. Anchett saw me barefoot once. Which is strange, because of how often I try to remember things.

I suppose I did not want to remember.

I slunk in, and I am not afraid to admit that. I did not like having any villager's eyes on me and bit my tongue to try to calm my nerves when I was force to choose a table close to where Findekáno would play. The stage was small, set with only a chair and piano and not even a light. It was not meant for show. This was a village of folklore and quiet and isolation, and they would not bring such things as microphones or radios into their lives. I was beyond grateful for that, some times. A little more time bought to stay here.

I began to fortify myself with plenty of alcohol, as Mrs. Anchett had begun to pay me actual wages for my work. The coins, since they worked by coinage still instead of paper here, felt cool against the skin of my left hand, even though the calluses and scars. No one had yet commented on the heavy strangeness of my scars and questioned the manner of the loss of my hand, save one, and I had told Mrs Anchett it was merely a ... fishing accident.

I remember that I was not taken to being a quiet drunk, save a very few times, but can remember certainly being a moody one. Much to the horror of my commanders.

There had been a day when I had dismissed with all casualness anyone from my presence, stolen a large bottle of powerful wine and taken it to the very top of Himring.

Sitting on the edge of the stone out-cropping, I had dangled my bare feet out over the sides that sloped down close the entire mountain and watched the western mountains for two sunrises and two sunsets. No ork had attacked. Nothing had demanded my presence, really. It was just Maedhros. And the mountains that surrounded Himring. And I wondered... I wondered if Findekáno looked back to the East, if he was wondering if I looked towards him.

I thought about many things. About how the black of my boots were like Findekáno’s hair... no, the odd small cats we had discovered somewhere. Valinor I think. Terrible things, with glossy black fur, thick as water.

They had incessantly bothered me, asking me for advice but only for a little while. They had wizened with the sunset and at last I had been alone. I felt their stares on my back, but at least they did not disturb my thoughts.

Where was I... Oh. Silk.

I do not remember Thangorodrim very well anymore. Nor do I want to. But I do remember the eagle beneath us, Findekáno’s silky braids flying in the wind, half-loose and brushing against my own torn body.

There were... grey, grey threads in his braids, not gold or silver, just a plain unadorned grey. Grey like his eyes, a thunderstorm or the sea. I thought of many things that reminded me of him, on that cliff. I would have gone ... I would say mad, but I think I already am, perhaps I would have even more than I am. If I’d not had him to keep my sanity safe.

But I knew. As sure as the vision of the burning ships at Losgar before my eyes, that he would think himself betrayed by me, as he had been. I could not stop my father from that burning. And his eyes, as he held my broken body, were the colour of smoke and heavy stormclouds. His eyes had been as rain, I swear I'd felt rain against my skin, but there was so little.

I could barely feel the blood pouring from my severed wrist from the damage the bindings of Morgoth's own iron had incurred, for long it had already lost sense of anything beyond to the fingers, and yet it had still held me fast. I could barely hear him gasping thanks to the Eagle, tearing his cloak to try to stop my wound so that I might live for my body was grown unable to hold its own self together any more, like a proper elf.

And yet all I could do was smile.

I had longed for death. I had given up any hope for light in this dark world, even when the sun had risen. Not as pure, perhaps not as bright as Laurelin, but the moon and the sun in the sky, they stood so far away from Morgoth's power and evil. It would bring hope to others. But could not to me.

I forget what I was thinking about.

Findekáno does not play yet, so I think he must be rehearsing. But he comes out from the back, and his eyes are a little glassy. A sharper glint in them, which shows he has been drinking, which is strange because he is Fingon the Valiant, and surely he needs no courage for playing for these strangers? I know he has never needed help in his courage before in performing for others, so I can't help but wonder what could be so different and make him so nervous.

I hold very still, when he sits down at my table, the harp he will play already on the stage. Visions of the sea, grey and stormy beneath the starlight of our journey to the hither lands. Thunderstorms under the moonlight. Then I start, hearing my name spoken.

"Maitimo? What's the matter?" He has said my name several times, before I realize I have stared at him.

"... n-nothing. Just tired."

"Have you slept today?"

"A little, the rain kept me awake." Still speaking softly, my throat cracking a little at the memories trying to surface until I think I feel the wind of the sky against me. No, my Findekáno, thinking of smooth muscled skin and soft raven hair, kept me awake all night.

"Oh. I know a song of rain, I'll play it. Aredhel used to say it was Nienna weeping, but... I always liked listening to it. It's like listening to the sky singing." I think Findekáno blushes, but it's hard to tell in the soft darkened light of the tavern, the only thing I can tell being his obvious slight embarrassment at saying this.

"I still think a catching a leaf is good luck." I tell him reassuringly. Wanting to reach out and touch his hand, a physical touch. My hand is resting around my glass that rests on the smooth dark polished table. Amber liquid swirling at the bottom before I raise the glass to drink those last drops and wait for a refill. My right arm tucked into the deep side pocket of my coat. I cannot touch him. If I do, I have a decided fear that he will be discovered as a ghost, an illusion of my deepest phantoms. I don't want him to go.

He offers a little smile. The corners of his mouth upturning as I try to smile back, even knowing it enhances the sight of freckles under my eyes, but I don't mind. Not with Findekáno.


	4. Morning Mist part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a small village of Scotland in the early twentieth century, Maedhros has been hiding peacefully, when a familiar friend discovers him by chance, both thinking the other long dead. An Alternative Universe story, with warning for Angst.

_Upon that misty night_  
in secrecy, beyond such mortal sight  
Without a guide or light  
than that which burned so deeply in my heart  
That fire t'was led me on  
and shone more bright than of the midday sun  
To where he waited still  
it was a place where no one else could come. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I could not remember when Findekáno was to go on next, but somehow things quieted and he gave me a hesitant look as if asking for me to give him the courage to do this. At least, I think so.

"You are Valiant, you know." I falter a little, telling him that, but I mean it. He is more, has been more, than any Eldar I can think of. I think Macalaure has said I am almost obsessed with like a religion. I'm not sure what a religion is to one like me, who has walked among my gods, but it seems very popular to these humans.

Findekáno flashes a brief, odd smile. A different one, but one that I recognize. It is amazing how different a smile can be. I know this one. A very long time ago when I would be the one begging him to stop doing things that could hurt him - Jumping cliffs into the ocean waves, climbing the tallest trees, or climbing a cliff, all just for the fun and joy of it.

I never really understood why he would do that sort of thing. But I always followed him in Valinor to make certain I would at least be there if something should happen.

He sits down in the low oak seat that has no arms or back. Whorls and knots are carved into the sides and legs of the dark polished wood. I see traces of spirals carved long ago, nearly worn away by so many feet resting upon the smoothed wood of the stage.

Findekáno takes the harp, tuning it for a few moments, and then begins to play.

There is pipe smoke in the air, but that is normal for this place. I have grown used to it, no longer having a coughing fit around the smoke of a traveler having his pipe in the front rooms of the inn. Now it is simply a thick pungent aroma of spice and incense to enjoy. Something sweet, I can nearly taste it, diffusing in the pale grey smoke that darkens the tavern even more. It is like being back in the womb, with Fingon’s dancing fingertips and curling wrist turning the harp into a heartbeat near my body

I am getting worried the alcohol is making me unnaturally poetic. Of course, if I were Ambarussa I would have simply sung along, or done something very public and very outrageous and of course very inappropriate -- though knowing Ambarussa, they never needed alcohol to do things like that.

Every time I watch him, I have to dart my eyes away through much of the first song, because he keeps looking at me. I have always felt naked when doing anything like what Findekáno is doing now. And so it’s strange when he looks at me, catching my gaze as I sit there in the audience, how I feel naked as if he is seeing beneath my clothes into my soul.

I am afraid I don't really know what the song is about, so I watch the reactions of the people in the tavern. Many of them wearing dark woolen clothing and boots for the heavy weather.

An old man, large in body and grey in hair, is solemn and quiet as he pulls his cap from his head and holds it against his chest. The threads of his sweater are braided. I study the simple pattern while I listen to Findekáno’s song and the thread reminds me of a winding river. I imagine I am walking along that river’s shore, feeling gentle sand beneath bare feet. In my imagination, my feet are still whole as in Valinor and still sensitive, feeling every grain. The water is from the high mountains, a pale grey-blue.

I am brought out of my thoughts by the quiet sound of clapping and the murmuring for a requested song. He bows his head in acknowledgement and begins. The light catches on his hair, making it shine blue and gold. I don't realize how long I stare at the braid spilling down his chest, until I hear the tune change and he has moved on to another song.

This one, I remember.

I feel my hands shake, a cold sweat breaking out along my skin. It is not the song he used to find me so long ago. But it is a song he borrowed from another, when I would be awake and he would play it to try to comfort me.

My limb had been brutally and quickly seared to close the flesh lest I bleed to death before proper attention could be given to my wounds. Done by a campfire quickly made along the way from Thangorodrim, and he had sung to me the words as I lay still as if dead. Barely lucid, barely aware of what he was doing when he placed his sword in the small fire for so long. I know I screamed. I know I did something, but my only remaining memory is of watching him, sword in the flames, and wondering if he was wishing for the blade to melt. Begging him to use it on me before it should be ruined, begging him to end my life.

There were years, ahead of us, until I stopped begging. A Feanorian was no beggar. But I had rejected Fëanor as father long ago in heart if not in blood. I could not accept what he had become and had lost all love for my father. I had become a hollow creature whose fëa tried to claw from my hroa every moment of every day.

They said I had no soul. I believed them. I think I lost it somewhere on a cliff.

Findekáno played. In the music I saw blood and felt it smeared against my body. A melody moved through the air making me think of honey sweetening tea. Instead my mind felt a broken body and darkness of Morgoth's making, surrounding our tiny camp. A Kinslayer, his rescuer and the Eagle.

...

There is someone touching my shoulder and my entire body gives a lurch of shock, looking up to see who did this. Just the woman who serves the drinks to those who sit and I nod to have my cup filled again.

He finishes this song and I watch a man refilling his long stemmed pipe. I flee to the outdoors, desperate for the cold bitter air to tear away the fog around me. I wrap my arms around my waist, icy air biting at my ears for my hair is too short to protect them yet. I want to kneel in the grass, curl up like a mouse into it and hope to disappear, but I don’t. Instead I just stare at the mist rolling over the hills, hiding trees and heather and gorse.

Out of the corner of my vision, I notice an odd light and turn to look at it. A house nearby has small stone steps, which I would be not very surprised to learn are centuries old from the way the stone buildings here whisper to me, and there is a small saucer of plain white set upon the lowest step. The smallest of lights hovers over it like a giant firefly.

Fireflies don’t exist here. That I know. I have seen them before, but only in Valinor. This is why it unnerves me, and the dark cloud is forgotten as I narrow my eyes to stare at it, wondering what it is. Whatever it is, I assume the masters of the house have left milk out for their cats and this odd creature is hovering over it as if about to lap the milk up.

I tilt my head, wondering at the sight, when the odd light abruptly moves away from the dish, and goes flying over the moors and disappears into the mists.

“You left.” Findekáno speaks behind me.

“I think I am going mad.” I am not very resigned to being insane, but it doesn’t surprise me. Pointing to the house and the lowest step, I ask, “Why do they leave milk out like that? For a cat?”

“For the fairies. They think it brings good luck, and that the fairies will bless the house and land if they do that every night.” He speaks like he knows this by rote, but with feeling, and I begin to wonder how long he has been here. Not here in the village, but among people like this.

“I saw a light, over it.”

I almost think I hear him smile behind me.

“That would be one of the fairy folk.” He speaks more softly, “They aren’t like us. I don’t know where they come from nor what they are. But I have seen them too. Perhaps they are a work of the all-father that we were never told of.”

A laugh breaks from my lips, wondering at this. “Perhaps they are a houseless fëa, one of our kin, lost and unable to find their way home. Do you think we will be like that one day?”

And then he sighs, his breath tickling the back of my neck and showing how close he is to me. “No, I don’t think they are of us, they don’t feel like it.” Findekáno pauses, “You are not going mad.”

“Very well.” I close my eyes, imagining what he looks like behind me. “Are you done playing?”

“No, I decided to take a break, let someone else play. I was worried when you left.”

“Why?”

“I saw the look on your face, you were remembering something.”

There is a moment of silence, while I think about what to say. “You sang that song to me on the way back from ... Thangorodrim.” I can’t help but hold out my right limb to look at it, “You had to use your sword to seal it ... so I wouldn’t die.”

Findekáno steps out to stand next to me. I still am a little taller than he is, but I would swear he has grown, because though I am tall, his lips are close enough for me to reach and I stare at them when he moves, as I my right limb back in my pocket.

And then I kiss him. Because there is nothing else that seems as right to do at that moment as that and the alternative would be... unbearable. Then I realize I haven’t stopped kissing him, and he’s starting to kiss me back, and there is a warm hand sliding up to touch the side of my face, the other reaching for my left hand, our fingers touching lightly, hesitantly. I’m so afraid he might pull away at any second, or that somehow, something will make him stop letting me do this. My lips still touch his, and they’re warm, soft and yes, full, which I feel when I shift to carefully nibble his lower lip. I have privately never agreed to being called ‘well made’. Findekáno was perfect, was always a kind of perfection that I never was. I am suddenly realizing how right I’ve been.

I can feel my heart beginning to beat faster as I grow unable to breathe from what we are doing, and then suddenly the door is opening for someone. The both of us break away before they can see what we are doing. I turn to stare at the moors, the pale mist growing in the moonlight, I can’t look at him just yet, as the interloper laughs to see Findekáno here and asks him to come back and play again so they can hear another of his wonderful songs.

He hesitates but does agree. I dare to look at him as he leaves, and the expression on his face is utterly indecipherable. There are many emotions that I see there, but I do see confusion, and I wonder if I have the same kind of expression. Perhaps I do, because the interloper takes notice of me, giving an odd look then nudging me to return and listen to the music.

With a halfhearted smile I agree, and follow the two inside the tavern. My table is still empty, and I am given another drink, which I gladly take.

Findekáno goes back to his harp and begins another song. He plays until it is so late that there are few patrons left. This means it is very late, because I know from experience that in villages like this, humans seem to enjoy being in these places until much later than other bars and taverns I have found in London or Aberdeen.

There are no clocks here, in this tavern. No sign of the time, but you learn how to feel it as it passes in the outermost isolated regions where it is quiet and still. You learn how to feel the crawl of the moon and the sun, like the instinct of creatures to know when it is time to migrate from one place to another. Here, even the mortals have that gift. I think you learn it in places like this, when time can be a matter of counting seasons.

Findekáno is the last to play. It is very late, but it is an evening that precedes a day of no work for the patrons here, so they stay, as do I. I can’t leave without him. Not now, not after what I did. I have to speak to him.

His last song, I barely remember. He packs up the harp in a well-padded carrying bag, and I watch him do this in his quiet methodical way. I move from the table to sit at the edge of the stage, hand and limb stuck in my coat pockets as I hunch over trying to look inconspicuous, waiting for him to walk back to Mrs. Anchett’s hostel where we both are staying.

We both walk through the fog, Findekáno and his red ghost trailing behind. Finally I catch up, speaking his name softly into the stillness of the mist.

“Why did you do that?” He says quickly, averting his eyes away from me. I am not sure what to reply with, to that.

“Follow you back? Because our destinations are the same.”

“Don’t be difficult!”

“... I don’t mean to be.”

“Please... Maitimo, why did you kiss me?” Findekáno drops the harp, and for a moment I fear it might break from the fall, but it does not, protected by the padded case. He stares at me, and I am unable to tell if he is about to strike me in some kind of fury, or something else.

“Because the alternative would have been unbearable.”

There is a tick in the corner of the left side of his jaw, I can see in the moonlight that brightens the area around us in the mist.

“Don’t speak riddles at me, Maedhros. I won’t let you touch me like that and walk away as if nothing happened, as if I’m nothing to bother with.”

That makes me pause, and I hold very still as before.

“You have never been nothing, Findekáno.”

“Have I?”

I remember the foil wrapped around the chocolate that was given by Mrs. Anchett during an ‘Easter’ she called it. There were words printed inside. _Make promises in chocolate._

I remember how Amme had been making chocolate the day I realized I was in love with him.

“I’ve loved you since I first saw you coming to take Aredhel home from playing with,” it takes me a painful moment to remember their names, “... ‘kormo and ...” I have to stop, their names are poison on my tongue. Those... they were my brothers, for a time. Until the darkness, when the dark seed of evil began to flourish in them. I think Morgoth tainted their souls, and I hope it is the fault of that evil one who made them the way they were, oh how I hope, “she came to see my brothers. You came to take her home finally.”

You see, among the Eldar, after a time... even so little a time, you know who you can spend your life with. I did not even need to speak to him, to know it. I remember he rode a grey horse that gleamed like silver in the sunlight, and his hair was unbound. His skin did not have the faint tan of being outdoors just yet, for it can take a long time for a Noldor’s skin to do that. Even so, I still burn, just like any human with red hair that I’ve seen. I would have thought that he would as well, because his skin is nearly as pale as mine, but instead his takes on a rich glow that sometimes makes me think of a pale chocolate.

Which is why I remember so clearly that day. The wind catching his hair and making it fly as he rode – too fast, always too fast. Amme had scolded him, because she knew by the sound of hooves of his pace, even from where she stood in the kitchen.

I was still nearly a child and he even more so. But I knew. I fell in love, and had my heart break in the same instant. For that is the way of Valinor.

There is a silence, as he looks at me, then quickly turns his gaze away into the mist.

“That was the first day I saw you. Your mother had sent you out to find Ambarussa so they would help her make chocolate.”

“You remember.”

“It’s... not done, Maitimo.” He seems... I am not sure. Confused. I think.

“Everything is done, Findekáno.”

“But... we’re cousins, and both male. You can’t just kiss me like that, you _can’t_...!” He forgets to mention how close male friends, comrades in arms will act with each other and yet be happily married. I know we have been such before, but ever would I have to hold back from closeness, from kissing my comrades victoriously, from kissing him in joy of the battle won, or in oath friendship. Because I would fear I might betray myself to him.

“Do you regret it so much, Findekáno?” That draws a quick inhalation of breath and he holds it, as if holding a retort. “Does it even matter any more, that we are?”

I kneel before him, hoping no one sees us, and look up at him. “I remember a boy’s promise almost, it was such a simple thing, a child’s promise, but you owned my heart ever after that. And always will. I am afraid for your sight if you could not even see a hint of what you possess of me, that I have never wed, at the least.”

I wait for him to speak, and at last he does. I have begun to worry he was perhaps too angered to say anything. But I know his temper is fluid and rarely lasts longer than a moment.

“I thought you were drunk.”

“No, I may have had their alcohol, but not enough to be considered drunk.”

“Get up,” he tells me gruffly, hiding something in his voice. I can tell he is hiding something because he has done that before, but would admit later the thoughts he had held back.

I rise, as Findekáno ordered me to, and still watch him. He seems to nearly fidget, which is always a little strange to look at when done by those who live as long as we do. After a time, there is a certain amount of stillness that overcomes our movements, as we slowly cease finding the need to use our body in more than necessary ways.

“What’s wrong.” I ask softly, still quiet in the strange ambience of moonlit mist. It begins to move down the hillsides like a slow moving river covering all that we see.

“I... I don’t know.” He gives a frustrated sigh, at least, that is how it seems to me, and then appears to be thinking about something, finally speaking, “Let’s go back to the hostel and speak there. The cold is bad for the strings.”

We head back, I unlocked the door, and we both find the kitchen had a light still on. Apparently Mrs. Anchett knew we would be out late, and has even filled the kettle for me. Inwardly, I am amused, and ‘Kano voices his own amusement by commenting on it.

“Sometimes, I think she is an elf the way she does things.” I reply, finding the tea and opening the strainer top. I pause, as I found that as well as setting out two mugs, she had also filled and prepared the teapot’s loose-leaf as well. My theory on her being an elf is even more justified.

Or simply the ‘old women seem to know everything and always more than you do’ theory.

Findekáno moved to see what I was looking at and arched a long dark eyebrow in my direction, to which I could only shrug with the barest trace of a smile on my lips. “I didn’t do it.”

Setting the teapot to boil, I turn the oil lamp’s wick up a little higher to illuminate the room, grateful that she had lit it because even after so many years, I still cannot stand the concept of electric light, it never has felt right to me. Luckily it is just enough to provide light, and yet also an intimate atmosphere, so the kitchen does not feel too large. It is in fact, enough to make one feel rather small when filled with full daylight. Even an elf reputed to be tallest of his kind.

Finding one of her large plates, I open the pantry with my right limb and find a box of tea biscuits. Those are for Findekáno, since I like the odd chocolate things she keeps for us, when we have tea together. I apparently am the only one who likes the same kind of tea and chocolate as she does, and though I am never certain if I provide very good conversation, she seems to not mind. At least twice a week, always once on Sundays, we have her tea together.

I set these things out on the plate and grab the tea cozy with my teeth, putting down the flat dish of foodstuff on the copper plated kitchen counter that takes up much of the space of the kitchen itself. This is where many people end up gathering after a day’s work, and reminds me much of the kitchen Amme used to keep before we went to Formenos. I like it.

The tea cozy is patterned in white with red juniper berry sprigs, and is taken by Findekáno. I murmur a thank-you before sitting down at one of the tall stools. After which follows an awkward silence only filled by the quiet sound of the gaslight heating the teapot.

“You sang with the others, tonight.”

I nearly jump like a cat at the break in the silence, tense from thinking about what to say, and paradoxically had been relaxing from the silence and his presence.

“Pardon?” He repeats the question.

“Oh. I ... really wasn’t aware that I was. What song was it?”

“Under the Sunset.”

I try to remember the song, then realize it is one that I used to hum to myself when walking. From the first day I had heard it sung by a bard when in the western isles. It made me think of home. And of Findekáno, I did not want to forget him, and each time I let that song leave my throat I remembered him.

Scooting the plate across the long table towards him, I hope the foods will distract him. He takes one of the biscuits, but still watches me, setting it down on the dark copper surface. “Why did you cut your hair?”

“It was heavy.” I’m not sure how to explain it. It did feel heavy to me. It itched in the summer, and made it easy for people to notice me, to pay attention to me. I hated the way people would stare at me because of my hair, when it would be down to my waist in long thick curls of brown that would glitter like red fire every time the sunlight would catch on it. Yes, I have looked at it and pondered it many times to try to see what others see in it, but I never understood the ... appeal. The appeal to standing out in a crowd, making yourself somehow a target. Call it an after-glimmer of before others thought I had thrown myself to my death, in the volcano. Always having to worry about how much of a target I was in battle, because I was quite literally known for the colour of my hair. It could have killed me, eventually.

“I wouldn’t have let others think I was dead, if I’d known you were alive.”

At least, I think I mean that. I want to say that I would never have killed myself, if I had thought that somehow he might be still alive and that I could find him, to at least know it for myself. I never would have barred myself from the Eldar and humanity as much as I have, if I had thought for one shining instant that Findekáno had survived that terrible battle. I would have searched for him.

But I have to remind myself even now, that there would have been little to do when I had found him. What could I have done, other than to stand there, and let out a relieved sigh, an ... oh. They were wrong. I was right. You are alive, my Findekáno, I would have said. I would have not been able to say another word than that.

Sometimes I thought myself to be a coward for wanting to stay alive, to not follow you, Findekáno, into Mandos where I had thought you were. I never knew what held me back, other than the Eternal Darkness that Namo seemed to insist we were all damned to. Or was it the unforgiving nature of the Mandos Halls and the fear of having to face my father once again and all of those who met death by my word or my hand?

A coward to not kill one’s self, I had thought.

Ironic, how I would think that, when I had for long believed one was a coward to take one’s own life. For it is so beautiful, and strange, and I think I have not been ready yet still for the shadowed road that so many others before us have taken.

“Why?”

I blink at the sound, once more lost in my thoughts, “I’m not sure. Because I saw little reason, when I thought you were dead to let others think I was alive.” I speak in barely a whisper. “I think I died that day that they told me you were dead.” I stare at the copper sheeting that shines dully under the lamplight, drawn to the way his braid of dark hair changes to blue even in this light.

We both are silent for long enough time that we jump simultaneously when the teapot whistle suddenly bursts into sound. I quickly get up to turn it off, before it wakes someone up, and pick it up by the warm handle, turning to pour the tea into both cups. Setting the teapot on the table, the tea cozy is pulled over it with the silent help of Findekáno and we sit back down, each with our own cups of tea.

I stare at mine, without speaking. There is nothing else I know to say, other than what I already have said. We lapse into inconsequential talk about other things, the songs performed by others tonight, and the songs that Findekáno played and has picked up in his journeying. Carefully avoiding all discussion of anything that does not include the humans. I enjoy the taste of the chocolate melting and adding flavor to the tea. Tasting it, I realize it is a kind of hibiscus tea, and strong. I sniff it suspiciously, scenting ginseng as well. I will have to ask Mrs. Anchett about this tomorrow. I remember how hibiscus is only used at night for... love, and passions, really. She would of course know that, as old as she is.

Findekáno does not seem to notice the scent, only seeing it as tea, and drinks much of it. I can only assume he is parched from his playing, though he seemed to drink enough of the warm beer to sleep quite soundly in the morning once he goes to bed.

When we finish and the dishes are rinsed, I am full with warm tea and chocolate, ignoring most of the biscuits for Findekáno to eat. I stop when I feel him touch my arm, as we walk back to our rooms, and he looks at me, standing outside his.

“Artanáro – I mean, Ereinion, his mother... She- we did not love each other – we were not wed. I only needed an heir, Maitimo. I had to, more than anything was the importance of making certain there was someone to carry my name, no matter that his mother already had a lover. I don’t know what happened to her, but she most likely is already with that one, whoever he is.” Findekáno shook his head, as if not certain and realizing he had never bothered to think too much about it.

“You did not love her?”

“I loved her as a friend, as someone who knew what was necessary and was willing to do the necessary thing in the face of everything else.”

“Oh.” I say simply, then move to go to my room, trying to distance my emotions thoroughly from this conversation.

“Maitimo,” he said quietly, making me turn again, to look at him by his voice alone. “I loved you. If you could have given me an heir then you have been hiding more than I thought, from me...” he gave a lopsided smile at that. “I still do.”

We looked at each other again, for a long moment.

And then, words were no longer needed, as sometimes doing is more important.

That night, we held each other, still dressed and lying atop the covers, half-dozing as we watched the other so close.

And for the first time in more than a thousand years, I finally dreamed.


	5. Morning Mist part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a small village of Scotland in the early twentieth century, Maedhros has been hiding peacefully, when a familiar friend discovers him by chance, both thinking the other long dead. An Alternative Universe story, with warning for Angst.

The next day at breakfast was strange for us. And yet suspiciously not for my employer Mrs. Anchett.

You must remember that I am a man, or rather male if you wish to think of me as not a man, for I am an elf and a man is often thought of as human. Findekáno is also a male, and so a love more deep than friendship is different, even among elves, and most especially among the mortals still. In a place this isolated, even more so, for I have found in those lands where life is difficult, it is important that one be willing to have children and make a life for them so that generations may grow and flourish. Or at least that is the hope.

She poured us tea, not asking why she had only heard one door open in the morning. I know she rises still very early in the day. She seemed quite tranquil in her own way of self-satisfaction that made me want to interrogate her, reminding me of my mother, when she had achieved something without letting anyone know what her purpose was.

The nature of a relationship greater than friendship, between two who are male, is simply not something I have found accepted with great alacrity. And so, that was one worry of mine once we awoke still holding each other in his bed.

I did not want to leave this place, this village in the remote places of a land I had grown to love for the solitude I could find. I did not want to face rejection of who and what I am. It was not something I had been forced to encounter just yet. The thought of Findekáno suffering such similar a thing was as well something I did not want happening.

Breakfast was with all her houseguests as it always is, around her large kitchen table with chairs pulled in from all around the first floor of her inn. Because it was winter, there were few, only six others besides Findekáno, Mrs. Anchett and I.

There is a woman who comes to assist Mrs. Anchett at times in her cooking, but this morning I could see she had not shown up. Mrs. Anchett does not believe in eating anything green with breakfast, so there was no salad. Eggs, scrambled, from the woman in the village who keeps the chickens, bacon from the butcher who would send her meats twice a week and biscuits warm and soft, almost melting in your mouth when you would bite into them. Honey and butter was set on the table to add to the breads. She knew others would like toasted slices to eat with their eggs. She always seemed to know just what someone would need.

Findekáno sat on my left side at the table and I passed him the honey, remembering how he would always skip the butter when eating bread. I could see him receiving lingering looks from several of the guests, much to my strange satisfaction. I felt proud. That he would want me, and be desired by others. That I would love him, and he would choose me as his lover, and love me in return.

I am not a very good choice for anyone to love. Many stories and fables talk of love with a faerie, but I am not that kind of faerie. I brought ruin to cities and entire houses of Eldar. To my own house, death befell all of my family because of me, save for Makalaurë. I am that creature that mothers tell their unruly children about that gives them nightmares. The tall flame haired demon with his long bright sword that can pierce any shield.

I heard the tales told, even after I had let others think me dead, through the pit of madness I had fallen into. Centuries after, they were still whispered around a campfire the days of my father’s betrayal of his half-brother’s people and my own of those of Doriath. Of all the evil deeds my brothers committed in the name of our father who beget us and the hallowed jewels he had created that were stolen by an evil it took centuries to realize it was hopeless to fight against.

My right arm rests against my thigh as I sit, out of politeness for the guests and not wishing to be stared at. It is an old habit now, to keep hidden that which I no longer have.

He smiles a little at me, taking the honey and I realize I am staring at him when I feel Mrs. Anchett kicking my calf under the table to get my attention. She has asked me a question.

“Mister Anairo mentioned you both knew each other when you were young, Maddy?” I blinked because there was a fog between everything and myself that seemed to refuse to leave my vision. Her voice just a little dim, but it finally came to me to reply.

“I do.”

She sighed, remembering that I’ve never been one to speak more than a few words more often than not, and continued trying to pry it out of me. I thought it interesting that Findekáno would use his childhood name, Anairo, the name that he might have had if he had been a daughter, his mother named Anaire. He had not told me the name he was using here, so I looked at him in curiosity.

“Please, just call me Fin.” Findekáno smiled a little at her. He was always very good at charming people with just a smile. Mrs. Anchett smiled back at him.

“Where do you know Fin, then?”

“We played together as children.” And fought together as men.

Findekáno rescued me from my bafflement at how to say anything about us, “We were childhood friends but lost touch with each other when we were older.”

I notice something in his face, ignoring my breakfast but taking a sip of tea while turning my gaze to the table as if suddenly finding it fascinating. Now wishing for my hair to be long once again so I could hide my face in it.

He watches me, something that I can just feel without having to look and see those grey eyes watching. Luckily the other guests are finishing their own breakfasts and leaving for wherever they are travelling to. Unfortunately it means in a few hours it will be just Findekáno and I who stay here at the inn. I can’t help but be nervous for that.

To my relief, the others are gone while Findekáno has slipped into some kind of mild chatter with Mrs. Anchett and I have gone to eating my food silently, hoping to stay out of the conversation as much as possible. I think about Ambarussa, my youngest twin brothers who both had hair as auburn as mine, and remember how our mother used to add honey to the soaps she would use to make their hair soft and they would suck on their hair because it would taste sweet. I suspect every morning I eat bread with honey, I think about them.

Smiling a little while I remember that, I finish eating the scrambled eggs while I listen more to the two people who are largest in my life right now, talking with each other. He helps her clean up, and I stay out of the way by slinking into the main living room where Findekáno’s harp is set up for practice.

The entire day was spent simply sitting in a chair, listening to Findekáno play. Simon, the large cat, would jump into my lap and keep me warm and then decide at intervals to demand food, which of course would be given. Some times, I would watch Findekáno and how his hair would fall free from the braid in long locks that would trace the edge of his face, lost in his music almost as Makalaurë would. We are a musical people. No matter what we do, we cannot escape it.

I was never as talented at music as others, but Makalaurë told me once that I play too much from my heart, and that in the end it limits me. Now I have even more limits, so I have forgotten much of music.

Those grey eyes would darken, as I knew that memories haunted him with so many songs just as they haunted me.

But I was past many things now. I had gone mad when he had died. I still have a little of that madness left in me. But Simon forgives me for it, as long as I pet him just so, and remember where he itches most. And Mrs. Anchett does not mind, for I suspect she is one of those women who know everything about you. And Findekáno... he does not mind, at all, perhaps. For which I dearly hope, but I am old enough now to understand if he cannot.

One might think me not much of an elf anymore and I would have to agree wholeheartedly. I have shorn my hair without knowing why myself that I did it. I have hidden away in a little village of mortals where I work for a little old woman that runs a little inn. I think I have forgotten how to wield a sword by now.

That is a loss I do not regret all that much.

Stretching out my left hand, my right hidden in my pocket again, I look at the fingers and palm. There are scars there that have never healed. The memories lingered for centuries, ages, but they are finally gone. I no longer remember how I received many of the little marks. I know the line from wrist to my first thumb joint is from when Findekáno pushed me out of a tree when we were children. I had called him by his ‘daughter name’ that would have been his had he been a daughter. I was only teasing, but he took it very personally. His father, my uncle, had set a great deal of pressure on him even at an early age. Just as my own father had.

Clenching and unclenching my hand, I look at the muscles and tendons moving beneath the skin and manage to remember what this hand once looked like when I practiced with my sword for hours each day. Much of that old strength has withered but I do not miss it. I think that as long as I never touch another weapon again I will be quite happy and content with my lot. I grew tired of killing things.

When I last touched my father’s precious jewel that he had created with the most pure of amber lit by the holiest of liquid light that fed the tree of night, that is what I knew. In the deepest recesses of my being, I knew that I was tired of death and that to end it, I must die as well. But I love life too much, I always have.

Evening came and went, and I found myself in Findekáno’s bed once more. We were still holding each other, facing each other and I watched him in wonder that he would suffer that touch. My left hand was intertwined with his, and I was slowly memorizing his features, knowing through the way his eyes were heavy lidded that he studied me in return. Findekáno is very different in build to me, in so many ways. Which is fascinating because we share the same grandfather. He is tall but not as tall as I am, with black hair that shines blue and falls to his waist and pale skin that tans a pale coffee colour beneath sunlight.

“Kano?”

“Mmm?” He asked softly, in the dark lit room.

“When did you first think you...” I had to hesitate. I did not want to assume though it seemed as if it should be obvious. I needed it so much I thought I could die all over again inside if he said I was wrong.

“I first knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, when I was thirty five and pushed you out of the tree in our Uncle’s orchard.” He moved closer and I felt his full lips against mine, they were very warm, almost hot. “I didn’t think I loved you, I knew it.”

“Oh.” I replied in a breathy voice, kissing him back with a smile.


End file.
